Jackie Lambertsen

Jackie’s was introduced to seamanship and sailing at Camp Seafarer in eastern North Carolina which she attended in the early 1960’s, first as a camper and then as a counselor. When she saw the long lines of campers registering for sailing courses, she wandered over to the motor-boating section and completed the entire course in her first year. This allowed her to command any of the camp’s power boats on her own. Courses in seamanship were required of everyone.

Her fondest memory is the “seaman’s survival” course which ended with a demonstration requiring each camper to float in a lake with their hands and feet tied behind their backs. She learned that you could close your eyes and float happily to survive a long time in the water with no effort. Next time Jackie will wear sunscreen on her eye lids so that she will not look like a frog when they blister!

In the late 60’s, on a vacation from her systems engineering job at IBM, Jackie sailed the Eastern Caribbean on the original Polynesia, one of the Windjammer Cruise yachts, and rediscovered the sea. Later when the captain asked her to join another one of the ships as crew, she decided that at age 24, this might be her chance to “go to sea and see the world.”

Four months later in the Caribbean, she was offered a berth on Stormvogel, at that time one of the premier racing yachts in the world, a temptation she could not resist. It was mid-March and early to cross. The crew, which included eight seamen, two cooks, and a one-eyed cat, spent three weeks sailing from English Harbor, Antigua, to Gibraltar via the Azores. The first two weeks were relatively quiet: the crew introduced themselves to each other and read. Landfall in Puerto Delgado lasted less than 24 hours when a storm developed. Captain Malcolm Horsley called the crew together and headed to sea in front of a major spring low pressure system, landing in Gibraltar less than five days later. Cold, wet, exhilarating weather. It was so much warmer in the saloon than on deck that it rained inside the ship. Jackie is wearing the stripped pants in the photo above which was shot from the mizzen spreader in mid-Atlantic.

After landing in Gibraltar, Jackie rented a room from a Royal Navy couple for three weeks until she landed her next job, crew cook on the Matilda, a private motor yacht owned by the Chanel #5 family which was on its way to Seville for “Feria.” Jackie remained on the Matilda for the rest of the summer of 1970 as they motored around Mediterranean Spain to Matilda’s home port of Monaco. Lessons from the rich and famous.

To relax, Jackie studied pattern cutting in London that winter. In late spring of 1971, she joined sailing vessel Jessica in Amsterdam while the ship was completed in the shipyards across the river. After she provisioned the ship, she crewed the 65 foot sailing yacht from Amsterdam through the English Channel to La Coruna, Lisbon, Atlantic and Mediterranean Spain and then to the south of France.

One problem facing Jackie was the attitude that it was fine for women to provision, cook, clean, and generally take care of the yacht below decks, but that women had no business above decks. That is, until the crew was in trouble. Then the captain would call Jackie from the galley, hand her the wheel and order her to “keep the ship steady.” So she developed helmsman skills while wearing an apron over a bathing suit, often in driving rain.

At the end of the 1971 season, Jackie realized that although she could continue cooking, summer time in the Med and winter time in the Alps, she was not building a nest egg for the future. After attending a four month course at the London Cordon Bleu School of Cooking, it was time for her to return to the States to continue her professional software career.

Fast forward from 1972 to 1988 when Jackie discovered that Chris’s love for the sea and adventure complimented hers. As their friendship grew, they invested in a 35 foot C&C ship built in 1973. Finally she could master the skills required of a blue water sailor! As her seamanship skills improved, she was able to captain Truce solo in the inland waters of eastern North Carolina. Land-locked no more!

After years of sailing together from Beaufort, NC, to the Chesapeake around Cape Hatteras, Chris and Jackie realized that to voyage the world, they needed a more resilient boat. Heeding Jackie’s admonition that she could not handle anything larger than a 65 foot sailboat, Chris found one that satisfied their requirements: pilot house, stand-alone sea bunks, mega water storage, mega fuel storage, powerful engine, strong hull and keels. In 1996, they secured SHIBUMIand spent the next six years refitting her, sailing her in ocean sea trials from Maine to Florida, and obtaining their USCG licenses. What an learning curve!

Also during this time, Chris and Jackie chartered extensively in the Caribbean, notably in St. Martin, St. Barts, Nevis, St. Christopher, and the British Virgin Islands. Here they enjoyed good weather while they relaxed on bareboats which, after SHIBUMI, felt like toy boats in comparison. After months of planning, in June, 2003 Chris and Jackie departed on a voyage which they hope will find SHIBUMI on her third circum-navigation!